


where the love-light gleams

by starsorts



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Airports, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Established Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Fluff, Holidays, M/M, Romance, St. Petersburg days, YOI Secret Santa 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 20:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17168465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsorts/pseuds/starsorts
Summary: "'Is there anything I can bring you from Chelyabinsk?'Now, outside, a streetlight flickers on.  Soon, all of St. Petersburg will glow hazy and familiar.  'Just you,' Yuuri says with a smile.  He steps away from the tree to take it all in – the miniature village under its branches, the red ornaments bright against dark needles, all of it theirs.  The ring on his finger glimmers.  'Just come home.'"Victor and Yuuri will be home for Christmas, wherever they are.





	where the love-light gleams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhiteSeafoam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteSeafoam/gifts).



> This is for the lovely WhiteSeafoam (@vodkaakola on Tumblr)! You requested something vanilla and warm – I hope this fits the bill. Happy holidays and I hope you enjoy! <3 
> 
> –
> 
> I do not own Yuri!!! on Ice.

Yuuri’s cell phone rings just as he’s placing the star topper on their Christmas tree.

“I did it,” Victor says when he picks up, breathless, beautiful. The buzz of the Russian Nationals crowd is audible through the line. Victor’s voice, raised against it, is flush with excitement but he sounds small, so many miles away in Chelyabinsk.

“Of course you did,” Yuuri says to his husband. “And I’m so proud of you. A perfect ending.” Yuuri flew in from his own Nationals in Tokyo just a few hours ago, in time to watch Victor’s final program as a professional figure skater. The television still murmurs by the tree: a replay of Victor’s program, then that final, golden moment in the kiss and cry with Yakov.

Victor hums. “I’ll see you soon enough, zolotse.” The quiet that follows seems, for a wisp of a moment, to span the distance between them. “Is there anything I can bring you from Chelyabinsk?”

Last year, when Nationals were held in Moscow, Victor bought a red matryoshka doll with golden hand-painted flowers from Izmailovsky Market, despite Yuuri’s insistence that he didn’t need anything. The year before, Yekaterinburg, it was a tiny replica of a church inlaid with emeralds from the Ural mountains.

Now, outside, a streetlight flickers on. Soon, all of St. Petersburg will glow hazy and familiar. “Just you,” Yuuri says with a smile. He steps away from the tree to take it all in – the miniature village under its branches, the red ornaments bright against dark needles, all of it theirs. The ring on his finger glimmers. “Just come home.”

* * *

_Come home_. Yuuri’s words echo as Victor looks up at the clouds, at telephone wires cutting across the deepening Chelyabinsk sky. He’ll have just enough time to find something for Yuuri and make it to the airport for his five o’clock flight. And then just four hours away, after a short layover in Moscow, Yuuri will be right there in his arms.

He ducks into the first boutique he sees, greeting the shopkeeper with a quick smile. The shop is filled with local crafts – intricately-painted matryoshka dolls, hand-carved wooden panels depicting firebirds and kings, and colorful samovars for heating water. Sitting atop a glass case of amber jewelry is a small display of lacquered boxes. Yuuri already has a black box with koi from his parents, but there’s a box sitting here with gold edges and a tranquil hand-painted winter scene that would look beautiful next to it on their dresser.

Outside, the snow falls thick and fast as Victor hails a cab, gift in hand. “The airport, please,” he says. For a moment, Victor closes his eyes to the chill, imagines sitting in front of a glowing Christmas tree with Yuuri in his arms. He can almost feel his warmth, the way it will start in his fingertips and pull him under. Yuuri’s presence always does this.

It’s only when he’s at the airport that everything starts to go wrong. It’s there in the security checkpoint line, which seems to move at a glacial pace, and in the dragging minutes it takes them to manually inspect his gift for Yuuri. It’s there in the sinking feeling in his stomach when he finally reaches the gate, only for the agent to announce the first delay, then the second.

As he tucks his carry-on bags under the hard airport chair, he calls Yuuri. “I’ll still be home for Christmas tonight,” Victor says to him, but it’s quieter now. What little time he had in Moscow to make his connecting flight is quickly dwindling. “I’m sure of it.”

* * *

Yuuri stays on the phone with Victor until he finally boards the plane, an hour and a half later. But he knows something is wrong as soon as the first words leave Victor’s mouth – “delay” and “home” and “hour”.

It takes Yuuri half an hour to find everything he needs to – small plastic containers and his wallet and a sitter for Makkachin. (“You owe me,” Yurio says as he strides into their apartment, “about a billion favors.” Yuuri pretends not to notice Skype open on his phone, with Otabek looking vaguely puzzled.)

If Victor hears Yurio’s attitude or him searching their cupboards for plastic lids or the sudden commotion of a busy street, he doesn’t mention it. It’s only when he’s in a taxi, watching the snow flutter against the car window, that reality kicks in.

There are so many ways this could go wrong. The timing has to be perfect, and then there’s the issue of all the food. And the wine – where could he possibly find wine right now, unless he decides to bring water? He could tell the taxi turn back now and let him off at their apartment again. He could wait for Victor there. But he’s still holding his phone up to his ear and Victor is still talking, saying something about the pirozhki his mother made for Christmas when he was little. After several years, Yuuri knows all too well what’s happening, hears the unease between Victor’s words even if Victor doesn’t.

And really, there is no decision to be made. As the Pulkovo Airport grows closer outside his window, as Yuuri grips his duffel bags a little tighter, he realizes that he has always known what to do.

* * *

“What do you mean I missed it?” Victor is suddenly conscious of everything, of the pity in the ticketing agent’s eyes, of the slight shake of his own hands.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Nikiforov. It left ten minutes ago,” she says, scrolling back through the Aeroflot flight schedule. “We can put you on the next flight, tomorrow at seven-thirty. Is that okay?”

_Come home_ , Yuuri had said. He tightens his grip on the counter, knuckles milky white. On the tarmac outside, snow is gathering in boundless drifts. Moscow glows cooly in the distance. Not for the first time, Victor longs for the familiar St. Petersburg skyline. For Yuuri’s hands in his. _Come home_.

“Yes,” he says through a stiff smile. “That will be okay.”

He calls Yuuri as soon as he gets back to the gate. A flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg is an hour and a half, but if he started driving now… It’s a ridiculous thought. On the driest summer day, the drive takes nine hours at least, winding through the countryside. Anything could happen in the snow.

Yuuri doesn’t pick up his phone. Instead, the call goes straight to voicemail, Yuuri’s voice instructing him to leave a message. Victor’s heart lurches at the beep, at the silence on the other end.

“ _Zolotse_ ,” he chokes out, “I’m so sorry. I thought I could be there tonight, but my flight was delayed, and by the time I landed in Moscow, the connecting flight – “ His voice dies. _Come home_ , Yuuri said, and Victor suddenly thinks of him waiting by a Christmas tree, pirozhki and fried chicken growing cold as the night ticks on. “They’ve put me on the first flight tomorrow, at seven-thirty.”

Around him, the terminal quiets as the final flights arrive. Passengers make their way toward the security checkpoint, then to baggage claim, where they will find their husbands and wives, their cousins and siblings and friends and lovers. Victor will wait in this stiff steel-rimmed seat alone until morning.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Victor says to the voicemail machine, even though he knows it’s not what his Yuuri deserves. Yuuri deserves romantic walks along the bank of the Neva at dusk and buttery kolach fresh from the oven and all the bright, burning stars he can see. “Tomorrow, we’ll have our Christmas, I promise.”

Nobody replies.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Yuuri, _zolotse_ – ”

“Victor,” somebody says and he looks up toward the source of the voice. And then he can’t speak, can’t think because –

“Yuuri,” Victor breathes, eyes wide.

“Surprise,” Yuuri says. His smile, his eyes, his everything are soft and warm and _real_ , right here in front of him, a St. Petersburg dusk. There’s a sudden lightness in his chest, something so bubbly and effervescent that his mind has gone blank, except for Yuuri’s voice. “If you can’t be home for Christmas,” Yuuri says, dropping his bags at Victor’s feet, “then I’m bringing Christmas to you.”

Victor stands on shaky legs and pulls Yuuri close to his chest. “I can’t believe – “ he starts, and pulls back to meet Yuuri’s gaze, their fingers twining together. He lets out a breath. The air seems to tremble with relief. “You’re really here.”

He barely lets go of Yuuri’s hand, even as Yuuri tries to unzip his duffel bag to pull things out. Microfiber blankets from their sofa. Silver and gold tinsel. Reindeer antlers with little bells attached and the baggiest sweaters in their dresser.

Then Yuuri pulls out a scuffed sky-blue box that has lived, unopened, on the top shelf of their closet since he moved in. At first, it looks like a wreath lying inside the box, but as he pulls more pieces out, stacking them together, a miniature Christmas tree takes form. It’s complete with a string of colorful lights that Yuuri plugs into the nearby outlet. “It’s from Detroit,” Yuuri says, before Victor can ask. “Phichit and I shared a dorm room the size of a shoebox, and since neither of us could go home for Christmas, we made an investment.” Victor burrows under his blanket a little more as he listens to Yuuri’s stories and watches the tree illuminate their tiny corner of the airport.

“But – how could you have known?” Victor asks after Yuuri tells him about getting the tree through the airport security checkpoint. It’s the one thing that doesn’t make sense. “When I called from Chelyabinsk, I thought we’d land in time. You must have left – “

“I had a feeling. And I took a leap of faith,” Yuuri says. Victor can hear the pride in Yuuri’s voice, even as he avoids his gaze and leans over instead to adjust the star on top of the tree. It’s the growing pride of the Yuuri who jumps and feels, _knows_ that he will land. “Your layover here was short and your plane took off so late. I grabbed everything I could think of and went straight to the airport to catch the last flight out.” He smiles again, apologetic. “They took the borscht at the security checkpoint though.”

“Borscht?”

In response, Yuuri pulls out stacks of containers, foil-wrapped packages, a Ziploc bag full of kolach, spreading them across the carpet in front of the seats. “I couldn’t find any wine either,” he says. “But I have some bottled water.”

“Yuuri, no, this is – “ This is too much. This is more than Victor could ever have imagined. “Yuuri,” is all he can manage. He squeezes his hand again and sits back as Yuuri unwraps the food.

What Yuuri has managed to bring is the best Christmas dinner he’s ever had, even cold. They eat with their hands – pirozhki and fresh oranges and golden-brown kolach. Fried chicken and thick slices of pork katsu wrapped in foil. They don’t even notice the missing borscht.

“Come here,” Victor says, raising the corner of his blanket so Yuuri can snuggle closer to him. They’ve finished everything but the last orange, which Yuuri is carefully prying apart. “How did I get so lucky?” Victor wonders aloud. “You’re real, right?” He could actually be asleep on the airport floor, desperately dreaming.

Yuuri sets the orange in his lap and takes Victor’s hands in his, pulls them close to his heart. “I’m real. We’re real.”

They will sit until the first beads of light appear on the horizon, until the early sunlight swells into the terminal and bathes it in gold. Their airplane will ascend into the clouds, and then St. Petersburg will appear outside the window, a tangled web of streets.

“We’re home,” Yuuri will breathe as the plane touches down. There will be a real Christmas tree waiting for them in their apartment and bowls of oranges and a new lacquer box for their dresser.

“Yes,” Victor will say, not tearing his eyes off Yuuri, even when the other passengers begin to stand up. It is what he has always known. _Come home_ , Yuuri had said, and he will think of a tiny Christmas tree and foil-wrapped katsu and sweet oranges. “We are.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yuuri can be extra too. Anyway, some other thoughts:  
> -In ep. 10, Victor says he doesn’t celebrate Christmas on the 25th BUT Yuuri probably would – so boom, two Christmases. One on the 25th, one on the 7th (more traditional for Russia). Both of their Nationals fall around the 20th-25th, so I'm just running with the first Christmas in this fic.  
> -I’d also imagine that they’d take advantage of these two days and have the holiday food they remember from when they were kids. KFC is a popular Christmas food in Japan, so I thought Yuuri would probably carry the tradition to his new home!   
> -Title shamelessly taken from “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”, which was the soundtrack to this piece (and about half of the plays on Spotify are likely mine). Also, the Portuguese Love Theme from Love Actually may have factored into the writing of this piece. (Hold up, an airport and romance and oh no, I think I've watched Love Actually too much sorry)  
> -Happy holidays and thank you so much for reading! <3


End file.
